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Monday, December 28, 2015

The holidays are a time for us to eat, drink and be merry. Surrounded by great food and an abundance of sweets, some find it hard to resist the temptation of "just one more bite," followed by another bite and perhaps another one after that. Having overindulged in foods that are high in sugar and unhealthy fats in December, we promise ourselves to eat a healthier diet in the coming year.

Eating healthy is definitely a critical component to reducing our risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and a myriad of other adverse medical conditions. For those
who maintain healthy eating habits, food is more than just the fuel that gets us through the day. It is also the pathway to feeling good
and to staying focused and energized, or relaxed and calm.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Editor's Note: This blog post, co-authored by Marcus Conyers, originally appeared on Edutopia.

Explicit instruction to guide students toward taking charge of their outlook on academic endeavors can lead to a more positive—and ultimately more productive—approach to learning. Applying metacognition to both the emotional and cognitive aspects of learning can help students steer their minds to make steady gains in developing their knowledge and skills.

In a previous post, we explored the gains that are possible when students adopt an attitude of practical optimism as they learn. These advantages persist into adulthood, as business research shows that people with a positive outlook are more productive, motivated, and likely to achieve their goals on the job. And optimistic people enjoy better personal and professional relationships and even better physical health than people who tend toward pessimism.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Editor’s Note: This blog post, co-authored by Marcus Conyers, originally appeared on Edutopia.

The human brain has an amazing capacity to wield a potent cognitive strategy: selective attention. When we consciously focus our attention on something, we bring the power of the prefrontal cortex to this endeavor. By honing our ability to focus attention at will, we can more effectively screen out two types of distractions:

Input through our sensory organs, and

Our emotional responses.

Distractions via sensory input may be the easier of the two to block, according to Daniel Goleman in his book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. As educators, we may tend to notice the impact of sights, sounds, and touch points that draw students' focus away from lessons and learning activities. But while all of the sensory stimulations in the environment are readily obvious, emotions can be even "louder" when it comes to diverting attention in unwanted directions and making it hard to focus on learning.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Editor’s Note: This popular blog post, co-authored by Marcus Conyers, originally appeared on Edutopia. We received a tremendous response to the post and are republishing it here so that new readers can benefit from the information and strategies provided.

During the school year, students are expected to listen to and absorb vast amounts of content. But how much time has been devoted to equipping students with ways to disconnect from their own internal dialogue (self-talk) and to focus their attention fully on academic content that is being presented? Listening is hard work even for adults. When students are unable to listen effectively, classroom management issues arise.

Explicit instruction on cognitive strategies that can help students learn how to learn may have a positive impact on both academic performance and classroom management by emphasizing that students are in charge of their own behavior and learning. Teachers we've worked with find that classroom management issues decrease over time as students begin to master thinking skills that help them become more self-directed learners.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Are we able to influence our level of happiness? There is evidence to suggest that we can. By using the principle of practical metacognition, each of us has the ability to achieve a happier state of being and make our lives significantly better in the process.

In truth, an individual with a pessimistic or optimistic outlook is not born that way. As we explain in the book, our genetic makeup, family background and life experiences are only partially responsible for our outlook on life and our ability to experience and sustain joy.

Friday, November 6, 2015

Letters, letters everywhere. One of the best ways to encourage the emerging literacy of young pre-readers is to surround them with the letters of the alphabet. At home, put magnetic letters on the refrigerator. Buy puzzles and toys with letter-based themes. Have plenty of storybooks in the home that encourage recitation and recognition of letters and words.

Teachers also can display wall stories, labeled murals, and word displays. Children in classrooms such as these spontaneously use almost twice as much print in their play as those not exposed to a print-rich environment. Print environments are effective in encouraging reading as well as the earliest stages of writing.

Monday, October 26, 2015

The connection between the actions we take and our cardiovascular health—what we eat and how often we exercise—is well known, but what about the impact of our thoughts?

A wide range of medical studies has concluded that an optimistic outlook—in particular the feeling that life is worth living—has a protective effect on heart health. For example, researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who exhibit optimism or “emotional vitality,” defined as maintaining a healthy interest in their lives and the world around them, have a 20-percent reduced risk of cardiovascular disease in comparison to people with a pessimistic outlook.

Several factors may account for how emotional outlook influences physical health. Martin Seligman, a pioneer in the field of positive psychology, suggests that optimists, believing they can make a difference, take action to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In addition, people with a positive outlook typically have stronger relationships with family and friends they can rely on for social support in adopting healthy habits. A third possibility is that emotional health may be linked to biological mechanisms that shield optimists from serious illness or aid in their recovery.

Monday, October 12, 2015

We encourage teachers and parents alike to help students to develop the habit of consistently focusing on what’s useful and positive in their lives. An effective way to do this is to use the High-Five strategy, as described in our book, 60 Strategies for Increasing Student Learning.

The first step is to introduce the concept of positive learning. Discuss the benefits such as better motivation, problem solving, and well-being. Ensure that students have a chance to participate. Ask students if they would like to learn a way to more consistently sustain positive learning states. When you get their affirmation, read aloud the following story about Treasure Hunters and Trash Collectors.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

First I would like to extend a warm welcome to all our visitors,
including our friends from Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence. We are happy
you’re here!

Our latest regular blog post on Edutopia is “Unleashing the
Power of Positivity in Your School.” As we explain in the post, a positive
community of educators within a school has a powerful effect on the students
who actively learn there. Teachers help create a positive environment by exhibiting and
modeling an optimistic outlook and can-do attitude.

The post builds on a previous
post that we wrote, which outlines the benefits of practical optimism as a
strategy for achieving one’s goals through commitment, execution and
maintaining a positive outlook that success is possible. In this latest post,
we outline a variety of strategies that may be useful in enhancing practical
optimism, such as staying focused on the “upside,” expressing gratitude, and
regularly committing small acts of kindness. Other strategies include being
mindful of your emotional state, giving your brain and body a positive workout,
and infusing positive feelings into your surroundings.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

“The problem is that there are only 1.2 billion full-time, formal jobs in the world. This is a potentially devastating global shortfall of about 1.8 billion good jobs. It means that global unemployment for those seeking a formal good job with a paycheck and 30+hours of steady work approaches a staggering 50%.”—Jim Clifton, The Coming Jobs War (2011, p. 2).

In That Used to Be Us, Friedman and Mandelbaum (2011) make the case that for organizations to survive and individuals to thrive, each of us must harness the power of imagination and enhance our capacity for creativity and innovation to deliver that necessary something “extra.”

We can better prepare students for that uncertain future through explicit instruction on how and when to use cognitive skills that are the everyday tools of innovators and entrepreneurs so that they may take their place in what Richard Florida (2014) calls the creative class. At the core of the creative class are people whose “chief economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and new creative content.”

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Note: This post originally appeared on Edutopia on July 22, 2015.by Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers

Effective teaching is a continual work in progress. As educators, we adapt our practice each year to a new group of students, each of whom brings a unique blend of strengths, challenges, and experiences to learning. We adopt new curricula and apply new standards and mandates. We are always on the lookout for new approaches and strategies demonstrated by educational research to work in the classroom.

But all these changes can be hard. For example, adopting a new approach may require changes to lessons, new forms of assessing and monitoring student performance, more substantial consultation with colleagues, and adaptation of strategies to make continuous improvements. As teachers, we are willing to invest the time and effort required to change our practice if we clearly foresee the benefits of that change.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The topic of metacognition can seem quite abstract—a complex concept for students to embrace. But it is worth the effort to develop a metacognitive mindset in setting goals for learning and in monitoring progress toward achieving those goals. For teachers empowering students to think about their thinking with the aim of improving learning, it can be truly inspiring when they see the resulting changes in students’ motivation, resilience, and learning gains.

A 2014 study by Veenman and colleagues suggests that metacognition, or “cognition about cognition,” may account for some 40 percent of the variation in learning achievement across a range of outcomes. One of the major benefits of guiding students to become more metacognitive is in the context of goal setting and the impact on their motivation when they take charge of learning goals.

In this pioneering book, Marcus Conyers and I bring together brings together seven principles for connecting the science of neuroplasticity to practical strategies for enhancing the synergy of happiness, achievement, and physical well-being. Moving beyond common myths and misconceptions that these three areas of life are largely driven by innate talent, genes, and external circumstances, the text builds an evidence-based paradigm so that readers can take practical steps to improve cognitive function.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Neuroscientists recently discovered that optimism is associated with brain pathways connecting the left prefrontal region to the amygdala. Further research has demonstrated that optimism, traditionally considered to be an unchangeable trait, is a way of thinking that can be learned and enhanced. People with a positive viewpoint have less stress, better creative problem-solving skills, and better health outcomes than less optimistic people. In addition, optimistic learners are more likely to persist in the sometimes-hard work of learning, motivated by the belief that they can accomplish their learning goals.

Many teachers realize that as students become more optimistic, they are motivated to progress through learning difficulties and to attain higher levels of achievement. More optimistic students also have greater resistance to depression and the negative effects of stress. Over the years, we have taught many educators a toolbox of implementation strategies to increase practical optimism and other keys to learning in the classroom.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Marcus Conyers, Courtney Mosser, and Beverly Engel recently presented brain health information at a community forum at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, hosted by Chet Evans. I attended and found all three speakers to be highly informative and the audience interaction at the end of the evening refreshing. My co-author, Marcus Conyers, kicked off the forum with an informative and highly engaging keynote. Marcus' keynote "Living a Brain Healthy Lifestyle" is taken primarily from our new book with Wiley Education, Positively Smarter:Science and Strategies for Increasing Happiness, Achievement, and Well-being. Since we are getting a number of inquiries about this book, I want to share Marcus' presentation so those who are interested can check it out on YouTube. Positively Smarter is a book for both educators and those individuals who enjoy reading self-help books. Rich with research and easy to read, this book provides readers with many strategies for an ever more fulfilling lifestyle! Thanks to the Rollins College posting, you can watch his keynote on YouTube at ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6wmnC7qVLw

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Working memory involves the conscious processing and managing of information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. It has been described as the brain's conductor.

Memory has long been viewed as a key aspect of learning, but as the emphasis in educational standards has shifted away from rote memorization and toward the knowledge and skills needed to process new information, working memory is increasingly taking center stage.

There is an explosion of research today with the aim of understanding how this important function works and how to enhance it. However, the term working memory was first used more than 50 years ago to describe the role of recall in planning and carrying out behavior.

In the 1970s and '80s, British psychologist Alan Baddeley and colleagues developed a model of working memory that brings together how the brain accepts sensory input, processes both visual-spatial and verbal data, and accesses long-term memory; and how all of that input is processed by a function they referred to as central executive.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Note: Over the summer, we will be posting a series of articles that originally appeared on Edutopia. We hope you enjoy them! This post originally appeared on Edutopia on April 2, 2015.

Earlier in Donna’s career as a teacher and school psychologist, she assessed, diagnosed, and helped create interventions for children and youth who had difficulty with executive functioning. Today as teacher educators, we are pleased that our graduates are increasing students' cognitive, metacognitive, and executive functioning in classrooms around the world. As just one example, Texas teacher Diane Dahl blogs on teaching metacognition.

What Are Executive Functions?

Through explicit instruction and modeling, students can come to recognize the importance of taking charge of their executive functioning in their academic endeavors and later in their careers. Executive functions can be defined as the awareness and directive capacities of the mind. By wielding these skills and abilities, students decide where to focus their attention and which tasks to undertake. As a general rule of thumb, when students of any age have difficulty completing developmentally appropriate academic tasks on their own, executive functioning may be at the root of the problem.

In the human brain, executive functions are primarily regulated by the prefrontal regions (just behind the forehead) of the frontal lobes. Neuroscientists and psychologists have made significant gains in understanding the brain's executive functioning over the past several decades.

Young children play with various toys that teach them how to sort objects by shape or color, how to stack, how to count, how to say the letters of the alphabet, and how wheeled objects can go from point A to point B. When playing with others, they learn the concepts of sharing or taking turns—though perhaps not always willingly at first. As they grow older, they learn such concepts as problem solving and perseverance. A determined 4-year-old may get discouraged when her block tower keeps falling down, but she doesn’t give up, figures out a better way to build it, and the sixth time she tries—success! Thus, play provides many paths to mastery.

The presentation focused on how to achieve and support optimal cognitive performance across the lifespan through the application of practical lifestyle strategies. He shared a framework on how the brain can benefit from good nutrition, physical activity, positive affect, and social connections. Participants experienced a variety of brain challenges to engage the mind in logic, visual perception, concentration, and attention. Those in attendance left with a toolbox of practical strategies to put to immediate use so as to facilitate the process of living a brain-healthy life.

This summer our niece, Cortney Cogburn, Enrollment Management Assistant, at Carl Albert State College, and I will be planning together for a similar presentation of these strategies for increasing brain health and learning in Oklahoma.

Monday, May 18, 2015

In the business world, the chief executive officer is the person responsible for the highest-level decision-making made at a corporate entity. Without a leader to guide them, the people in the organization might scatter in a variety of different directions and find themselves at cross-purposes instead of working productively together toward the same goals.

The prefrontal cortex plays the central role in forming goals and objectives and then in devising plans of action required to obtain these goals. It selects the cognitive skills required to implement the plans, coordinates these skills, and applies them in correct order. (p. 23)

Monday, May 11, 2015

We all like to be recognized for a job well done. However, research indicates that teachers and parents can increase youngsters’ motivation by focusing their praise on students’ efforts and improvements rather than on outcomes alone.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Everybody makes mistakes—even teachers. Showing your students that you make mistakes and then demonstrating how you correct them can be an important way to help them build their problem-solving skills.

An effective way of modeling cognitive strategies is to demonstrate to students how you work through a mistake. Students may giggle when you as their teacher make a mistake, but you can use such a situation as an important problem-solving exercise by working toward correcting your mistake out loud and in full view of your classroom.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Sometimes, however, keeping students motivated to try in the aftermath of a failure can be very challenging for a teacher.

Students may interpret failure as being caused by an inherent lack of ability, in which case they won't be inclined to redouble their efforts so that they can succeed at a similar task the next time. If students attribute their failure to something that is inherent within their being, they are more likely to develop a pessimistic outlook that will thwart successful learning in the future.

Our approach to brain-based teaching and learning is based on the principle: Never question ability, always improve strategy. By teaching students that failure is a temporary setback that can be overcome by employing effective strategies for learning, we believe its possible for students to build a sense of mastery that drives optimism and self-esteem.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Happy spring! In many parts of the US, this season of renewal may seem long overdue—all the more reason to celebrate its arrival with a metaphor about the seeds of potential that all students possess to learn, grow, and achieve their goals in school and in life.

A favorite teaching and learning strategy among educators who participate in our brain-based teaching program is using metaphors to explain and explore new concepts. So let’s say that within each student, seeds of learning can take root, powered not by photosynthesis but by neuroplasticity, defined as changes in the structure and function of the brain as it processes new information.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Think positively! How often have you heard that when facing a potential problem in your life? Certainly thinking positively is good advice in that an upbeat attitude has been linked to better results in problem solving and learning.

Conversely, when people are in a negative mood, they can find it more difficult to think creatively and may also be more pessimistic about their chances of success. They may not be as motivated to think through complex problems, and this can lower their ability to achieve. Thus, the pessimism is borne out without the person ever realizing that a positive attitude might have led to different results.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Do you believe that people can become smarter through learning or that intelligence is determined at birth? How we answer this question says a great deal about what we believe about motivation for learning.

This important belief system and its impact on motivation surfaced for me in the early 1980s when I was working with a group of seventh-grade students classified as "gifted." Some of these students were highly motivated to achieve, while others were less motivated and underachieving.

Among this latter group, the prevailing believe seemed to be that because they were "smart," they did not need to put forth an effort to learn at school. In contrast, their high-achieving peers seemed to understand that they needed to put forth an effort so that they could attain their potential and achieve desired results.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Sunday is the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST) throughout much of the United States. But as you spring forward, do remember to get enough sleep!

Experts quoted by such mainstream media outlets as the New York Daily News and Time magazine have identified the Monday after DST as a vulnerable time for traffic accidents. Commuters are adjusting to a lost hour of sleep as well as an hour of daylight shifted from the start of their days to the evening time.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Over the past half-century, psychologists and neuroscientists have learned a great deal about the way our brains work. These discoveries have revolutionized our understanding about how people learn. We now know that academic achievement is greatly influenced by students’ abilities to apply thought processes in a systematic way. In education, terms often used are cognitive strategies (we use the term assets) and metacognition.

Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists may use the term executive functions or skills to describe similar functions. For example, educators, psychologists and neuroscientists may all speak of the importance of capacities such as working memory, selective attention, and metacognition with regard to learning. All three groups of professionals are talking about skills that are linked to the brain's prefrontal region, as well as other areas of the brain depending upon the specific skill. Ongoing research continues to increase our understanding about related structures and functions.

Some students arrive at school with most of their cognitive assets (or executive functions) in place. They have the capacity to benefit from standard teaching practice if they are motivated to do so. Other students do not arrive with all these assets in place. They may start school motivated, but they can quickly lose ground as their reading, writing, and computing skills fail to develop at the prescribed rate.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Maintaining a healthy Body-Brain System, including an emphasis on cardiovascular health, is essential for a long and productive life of learning and doing all the things that we love to do most. What better time than Valentine's Day weekend to celebrate the steps we can all take to adopt a cardio-protective lifestyle? The American Heart Association offers a simple prescription for heart health in the following "Simple 7" health guidelines:

Get active, with 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, such as brisk walking, at least five times a week (60 minutes for children).

Control cholesterol through a healthy diet and regular exercise to maintain a healthy weight.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Helping young children develop literacy is a key task for parents and early childhood educators alike. We have found that one of the most effective strategies is to surround young children with visualizations of letters and words, both at home and in the classroom.

Magnetic letters, for instance, are a fun diversion for toddlers and preschoolers. If they are just learning to spell their names, they will love to pick out the letters and arrange them on a magnetic surface like a refrigerator or dry-erase board.

This is just one aspect of a print-rich environment that early childhood educators and parents should be encouraging both in a classroom environment and at home. Classrooms are particularly great places to post the letters of the alphabet, both upper- and lowercase, with corresponding pictures. These connections can be reinforced with regular group recitations (“A” is for “Apple,” “B” is for “Banana,” “C” is “Cat,” etc.).

Monday, January 26, 2015

When we speak to teachers, one of the things they consistently tell us is how much value they find in the BrainSMART: 60 Strategies for Increasing Student Learning text. Some of many strategies we teach in this text help teachers to teach students how to remember important information. For example, the brain is somewhat like a computer. It acts as if it has a save key and a delete key. It automatically deletes the meaningless information we receive on a daily basis. To promote learning and therefore initiate the "save key," we need to make the information we teach meaningful to young students.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

We experience the world through our senses—through sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile impressions. The more fully we engage our senses, the more we experience and the more we learn.

We recommend that teachers use multiple sensory learning activities whenever possible to help students better understand and integrate the use of cognitive assets in their studies and in their lives. Encourage students to create graphics to illustrate these cognitive assets by drawing the concepts on which they are based and creating posters.

Our use of the brain car graphic, which underscores the importance of driving our own learning, is a popular example of how graphics can make a lesson memorable. Similarly, using a model of a brain can help effectively teach the concept of metacognition.

Even just standing and walking can increase the blood supply to the thinking areas of the brain significantly. Additionally, breakthroughs in cognitive neuroscience show that various movements require extremely high levels of cognitive function.

For more than two decades, Dr. Donna Wilson has been a pioneer in bridging brain science and psychology to educational practice. She co-developed the world’s first MS /EdS degrees in Brain-Based Teaching and Instructional Leadership (BrainSMART), as well as the first Doctoral Minor in Brain-Based Leadership. Dr. Wilson has co-authored 20 books and over 100 articles, book chapters, and blog postings. In 35 U.S. states and around the world, Dr. Wilson has led workshops for more than 60,000 educators and has presented at conferences with the Singapore Teachers’ Union, Jamaica Teachers’ Union, HBE (Australia), University of Cambridge, Leiden University, United Arab Emirates, and most all national conferences in the US. For the past twenty years Dr. Wilson has served as president and head of academic affairs for BrainSMART Inc. and the Center for Innovative Education and Prevention (CIEP) a not-for-profit institution. She serves as advisor to New York City’s Portfolio School and on the foundation of Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma. She also acts as co-chair of the Learning Environments SIG at the American Educational Research Association.